Post by mardude on May 17, 2013 9:55:19 GMT -5

You can be inherently talented at both but they both take practice and money. guitars arent cheap. you argument is ridiculous. deal with it

I'm pretty sure I know what I'm talking about, Mr. Goldfish. Give Jimi Hendrix a 50$ guitar and he can still play pretty much anything he wants. Give Kanye a 50$ producing program? It would sound like crap. You've obviously not done both, or you wouldn't try to tell me that producing takes as much work as playing the guitar. Anybody can press buttons for a few hours. Very few people can even play barre chords for more than a few minutes. Guitar takes actual physical talent. You need finger, hand, and wrist strength. And that's just scratching the surface. Producing just takes understanding of music and the program you are using. Most musicians can pick up ProTools and make a really good beat if you give them enough time. Most producers would need months and months, if not years of practice, to obtain beginner level skills on a guitar. Again, as someone with experience in both, this is absolutely the case.

oh youre pretty sure you know what youre talking about and you obviously know what I do. I should have known all this sooner. my mistake sir. carry on knowing everything

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know you realize that life goes fast - It's hard to make the good things last-you realize the sun doesn't go down - It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Post by Black Dynamite on May 17, 2013 11:04:39 GMT -5

I'm pretty sure I know what I'm talking about, Mr. Goldfish. Give Jimi Hendrix a 50$ guitar and he can still play pretty much anything he wants. Give Kanye a 50$ producing program? It would sound like crap. You've obviously not done both, or you wouldn't try to tell me that producing takes as much work as playing the guitar. Anybody can press buttons for a few hours. Very few people can even play barre chords for more than a few minutes. Guitar takes actual physical talent. You need finger, hand, and wrist strength. And that's just scratching the surface. Producing just takes understanding of music and the program you are using. Most musicians can pick up ProTools and make a really good beat if you give them enough time. Most producers would need months and months, if not years of practice, to obtain beginner level skills on a guitar. Again, as someone with experience in both, this is absolutely the case.

oh youre pretty sure you know what youre talking about and you obviously know what I do. I should have known all this sooner. my mistake sir. carry on knowing everything

I'm not claiming to know everything. I'm discussing things I have direct experience in. I went to school for audio production and watched at least a hundred or so different people try to learn it. The learning curve is far steeper on a guitar, and that's mainly because it takes more work. How many big name producers are in their early 20's? If you show me a big time guitar player at the same age, he's a prodigy. Are you trying to tell me you have experience in these fields and honestly believe they're both equally as difficult? I'm sorry, but for so many reasons, they just aren't.

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know you realize that life goes fast - It's hard to make the good things last-you realize the sun doesn't go down - It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Post by itrainmonkeys on May 17, 2013 21:34:09 GMT -5

Tonight, Kanye West has proven himself an innovator in the art of the album launch. He unveiled a new song and video via projections on buildings across the world. Above is what was projected at the corner of Bedford and N. 7 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. According to Rap-Up, the song premiered is called “New Slaves.”

Kanye’s website has posted a map of the world, indicating where actions will take place throughout the night in cities throughout the world. Sixty-six projections are involved in the launch. (Via)

Post by mardude on May 17, 2013 21:57:01 GMT -5

Wow that is something else. Song sounds very cool from the snippet and I love that hes bringing back some of that soul sound form his earlier records. Hopefully this is one of the songs he performs tomorrow night on SNL

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know you realize that life goes fast - It's hard to make the good things last-you realize the sun doesn't go down - It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Post by mardude on May 17, 2013 22:11:44 GMT -5

I want to hear an mp3 version. The beat is insane, but you can't get the full effect with this audio

It has to be a Hudson Mohawke beat. sounds SOO much like him. I think we will be getting a good friday esque release at midnight/whenever the last projection of this is over with...well I hope at least

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know you realize that life goes fast - It's hard to make the good things last-you realize the sun doesn't go down - It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Post by Boston Powers on May 18, 2013 0:47:33 GMT -5

This is a perfect example of what's great about music today. Major artists like Kanye, Daft Punk, Radiohead, etc are finding new and different ways to hype and release their new music on their own terms. It's pretty unbelievable.

The song sounds good to me but I have no idea how he would perform this on SNL. A solid 1/3 of it is not fit for public television.

Post by Pops on May 18, 2013 14:18:05 GMT -5

Okay, I get it. Kanye is brilliant, a genius. He will probably be at the top of the list when they talk about musical innovators and influences 25 years from now. I agree with all that. I anxiously await any new work he produces. But let's ease up on the "Jimi sux" crap. I like this David Fricke write up (note this does not imply that I believe "Jimi is better than Kanye" - arguments of that type for either side are illogical and silly):

I feel sad for people who have to judge Jimi Hendrix on the basis of recordings and film alone; because in the flesh he was so extraordinary. He had a kind of alchemist's ability; when he was on the stage, he changed. He physically changed. He became incredibly graceful and beautiful. It wasn't just people taking LSD, though that was going on, there's no question. But he had a power that almost sobered you up if you were on an acid trip. He was bigger than LSD.

What he played was fucking loud but also incredibly lyrical and expert. He managed to build this bridge between true blues guitar — the kind that Eric Clapton had been battling with for years and years — and modern sounds, the kind of Syd Barrett-meets-Townshend sound, the wall of screaming guitar sound that U2 popularized. He brought the two together brilliantly. And it was supported by a visual magic that obviously you won't get if you just listen to the music. He did this thing where he would play a chord, and then he would sweep his left hand through the air in a curve, and it would almost take you away from the idea that there was a guitar player here and that the music was actually coming out of the end of his fingers. And then people say, "Well, you were obviously on drugs." But I wasn't, and I wasn't drunk, either. I can just remember being taken over by this, and the images he was producing or evoking were naturally psychedelic in tone because we were surrounded by psychedelic graphics. All of the images that were around us at the time had this kind of echoey, acidy quality to them. The lighting in all the clubs was psychedelic and drippy.

He was dusty — he had cobwebs and dust all over him. He was a very unremarkable-looking guy with an old military jacket on that was pretty dirty. It looked like he'd maybe slept in it a few nights running. When he would walk toward the stage, nobody would really take much notice of him. But when he walked off, I saw him walk up to some of the most covetable women in the world. Hendrix would snap his fingers, and they followed him. Onstage, he was very erotic as well. To a man watching, he was erotic like Mick Jagger is erotic. It wasn't "You know, I'd like to take that guy in the bathroom and fuck him." It was a high form of eroticism, almost spiritual in quality. There was a sense of wanting to possess him and wanting to be a part of him, to know how he did what he did because he was so powerfully affecting. Johnny Rotten did it, Kurt Cobain did it. As a man, you wanted to be a part of Johnny Rotten's gang, you wanted to be a part of Kurt Cobain's gang.

He was shy and kind and sweet, and he was fucked up and insecure. If you were as lucky as I was, you'd spend a few hours with him after a gig and watch him descend out of this incredibly colorful, energized face. There was also something quite sad about watching him. There was a hedonism about him. Toward the end of his life, he seemed to be having fun, but maybe a little bit too much. It was happening to a lot of people, but it was sad to see it happen to him.

With Jimi, I didn't have any envy. I never had any sense that I could ever come close. I remember feeling quite sorry for Eric, who thought that he might actually be able to emulate Jimi. I also felt sorry that he should think that he needed to. Because I thought Eric was wonderful anyway. Perhaps I make assumptions here that I shouldn't, but it's true. Once — I think it was at a gig Jimi played at the Scotch of St. James [in London] — Eric and I found ourselves holding each other's hands. You know, what we were watching was so profoundly powerful.

The third or fourth time that I saw him, he was supporting the Who at the Saville Theatre. That was the first time I saw him set his guitar on fire. It didn't do very much. He poured lighter fluid over the guitar and set fire to it, and then the next day he would be playing with a guitar that was a little bit charred. In fact, I remember teasing him, saying, "That's not good enough — you need a proper flamethrower, it needs to be completely destroyed." We started getting into an argument about destroying your guitar — if you're going to do it, you have to do it properly. You have to break every little piece of the guitar, and then you have to give it away so it can't be rebuilt. Only that is proper breaking your guitar. He was looking at me like I was fucking mad.

Trying to work out how he affected me at my ground zero, the fact is that I felt like I was robbed. I felt the Who were in some ways quite a silly little group, that they were indeed my art-school installation. They were constructed ideas and images and some cool little pop songs. Some of the music was good, but a lot of what the Who did was very tongue-in-cheek, or we reserved the right to pretend it was tongue-in-cheek if the audience laughed at it. The Who would always look like we didn't really mean it, like it didn't really matter. You know, you smash a guitar, you walk off and go, "Fuck it all. It's all a load of tripe anyway." That really was the beginning of that punk consciousness. And Jimi arrived with proper music.

He made the electric guitar beautiful. It had always been dangerous, it had always been able to evoke anger. If you go right back to the beginning of it, John Lee Hooker shoving a microphone into his guitar back in the 1940s, it made his guitar sound angry, impetuous, and dangerous. The guitar players who worked through the Fifties and with the early rock artists — James Burton, who worked with Ricky Nelson and the Everly Brothers, Steve Cropper with Booker T. — these Nashville-influenced players had a steely, flick-knife sound, really kind of spiky compared to the beautiful sound of the six-string acoustic being played in the background. In those great early Elvis songs, you hear Elvis himself playing guitar on songs like "Hound Dog," and then you hear an electric guitar come in, and it's not a pleasant sound. Early blues players, too — Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Albert King — they did it to hurt your ears. Jimi made it beautiful and made it OK to make it beautiful.

Post by Black Dynamite on May 18, 2013 14:40:04 GMT -5

Totally bro. I'm not sure if you're being a moron or if you're kidding.

I'd still like to hear how my post(s) are rediculous, Mr. Goldfish.

It was your post about how producing doesnt take talent. I find that to be a ridiculous statement.

Please show me where I said that. The one single point I've been trying to make is that creating a piece of music on a guitar, is more difficult than producing a piece of music on a laptop. I have an incredible amount of respect for Kanye West and producers. If you're going to call my statement ridiculous, at least take the time to comprehend what you're reading.

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know you realize that life goes fast - It's hard to make the good things last-you realize the sun doesn't go down - It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round